Never goin' home
by Reikah
Summary: A collection of short AU one-shots. Fai/Yuui, Kurogane/Fai, and Kurogane/Fai/Yuui. More detailed summary inside.
1. Gladiators

**Notes:** So I kind of like alternative universe (AU) stories, a lot. Lately I've been writing/reading a lot of Fai x Yuui Holitsuba fanfiction, and I wanted to try my hand at my own, so, since real-Fai is dead in main-TRC canon, I had to come up with conceivable AU settings in which he could appear. I asked my friends to help me get in the mood by prompting me with various settings, and they responded _admirably_.

All the stories within this fic are AU and unconnected. They will range in length from 100-2,000 words, be anything from fluff to angst, and they will feature Fai/Yuui, Kurogane/Fai, and Kurogane/Fai/Yuui. I hope you enjoy 'em.

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><p><em>prompt from bottan: roman gladiators<em>

The crowd is still roaring as they exit the amphitheater, Rome's newest darlings dripping with sweat and blood. Other lesser slaves rush forth to take their arms; Fai tosses the shield at one of them, his heavy steel helmet and arm guard following. His gladius he hands over more carefully, knowing full well what could happen otherwise.

His shoulders are shaking and his limbs are heavy and painful; he took a few blows and some scrapes, but otherwise escaped lightly as always. Yuui was not so lucky, and Fai helps him remove his weapons with careful fingers as the slaves swarm around them.

They make it to their cell and he guides Yuui onto the cot, going onto his knees before his brother to trace the cut across Yuui's bare torso. Yuui swallows, his eyes fluttering closed, and Fai calls sharply for wine; the other slaves scatter, closing the door after them, and it is only then that Fai can put his hands to his brother's skin and exert his small stunted remains of magic, chasing infection out of the wound with fire as the restricting tattoo across his back glows sullenly in the gloom.

"Fai, I'm sorry," Yuui says in their mother tongue, and Fai shakes his head silently, indicating that Yuui has nothing to apologize for. They were outnumbered and they won, the two of them back to back against a dozen retiarii, even though one of them took Yuui's sword with his net at the very start. Twelve bodies lay dead on the sand, and they stood back to back while the crowd sang with joy and blood thirst.

He presses his thumbs to Yuui's sides and dips his head, touching his cheek to Yuui's knees, and then begins to unlace his sandals without looking. Yuui's hand settles in his hair - stiff and matted with blood, he will ask for water tonight to wash it - and strokes nonetheless.

"You're alive," Fai says. "That's all that matters."


	2. Aliens

_prompt by mikkeneko: fai & yuui as aliens, kurogane as the human establishing first contact._

Fei Wang Reed had all the personality of day-old cottage cheese, and Kurogane disliked him intently as soon as they were introduced. Nevertheless, he was the one the United Nations had picked to establish first contact with the race of aliens earth had dubbed 'the Gemini' and Kurogane, as the pilot of the vessel that would bring the diplomat to the space station built as a meeting ground, was more or less stuck with him.

The crew had been pared down to its bare essentials; aside from Kurogane and Fei Wang, the Earth Space Agency had tried to keep the flight list to a minimum, and the only other people on board were the Li twins. Syaoran, the elder, was a xenobiologist, and Syaoron, the younger, was a xenolinguist. Both would accompany Fei Wang to the meetings to learn what they could of the Gemini.

This was badly needed. Earth had encountered the alien race not four months ago, and most of the time since the discovery had been spent desperately piecing together information based on what their scanners had sent them. Every member of the species they had encountered thus far was an identical twin, hence the name, and made sending the Li twins a shrewd diplomatic measure. Hopefully their presence would act as a point of familiarity to the aliens.

Kurogane knew he should be honored to have been chosen, but instead he felt bored and impatient. Fei Wang had ordered him to remain with the ship in the space station hangar when he left with the twins, and while there were always some minor modifications to be made to their vessel, it wasn't exactly a task heavy on brainpower. Kurogane had taken a mug of the slop that astronauts were always stuck eating outside and was testing the hydraulics on the landing legs, which they'd need on their return to Earth, and when he heard the hangar entrance hiss open and closed he assumed they'd returned.

"Be with you in a minute," he said, and lowered his welding mask. The sparks that flew when he fused the exterior hatch shut over the delicate wires were almost blinding, but it was nothing new. This done, he jumped down from the leg, a ten meter drop only possible in the space station's lower artificial gravity. He stripped off the welding mask, taking a deep breath of the recycled space station air, and ran a hand through his hair. "How'd it go?" he asked, turning to the door, and then paused. It definitely wasn't Earth's representatives standing there.

The Gemini were young, near as he could tell. All the photographs and video footage he'd seen on Earth indicated a humanoid appearance, and these two were no exception; they looked like normal caucasian men, tall and willowy and blond but certainly nothing that _looked_ alien. Their hands were clasped together, and they were wearing the stylized garments Syaoron said was some kind of uniform. Their blue eyes were piercing, and Kurogane froze, unsure of what to do.

The one on the left whistled and then gave a series of chirping noises, his head cocked to one side. He sounded like a songbird, and Kurogane knew enough about the Gemini to know that this was their language and he was being addressed. Syaoron had taken the handheld translator with him, of course.

"Sorry," he said. "I don't understand you."

The two exchanged a long look, and then the one on the right tried, a fluting noise that wavered and sounded different to the first one's. Kurogane wondered if it was a different dialect he was trying, and shrugged to show his confusion. They looked at each other again, and the one on the left shrugged; they advanced on him in unison and Kurogane backed up sharply, unsure if this were a hostile event. "What do you-"

He was cut off when one of them touched his wrist lightly with curious fingers, and suddenly a barrage of mental images swirled in his head, nothing so extensive as words. Feelings, images, and concepts battered him; a sensation of isolation, curiosity, a strange indescribable chittering, pictures of things he'd never seen, and finally an image of himself standing there. Gradually meaning filtered through the telepathic communication, and after a second or two he was able to decipher it: _[Curious][sense of self/means of self-recognition][labeling within species][form of address?]_

"Kurogane," he said out loud, and both the aliens withdrew from his personal space, studying him. "My _name_ is Kurogane."

The one on the left beamed and nudged the one on the right and chirruped at him proudly, and Kurogane realized they understood _him_, at least. The one on the right touched him again, and although Kurogane was prepared for the assault on his mind, it was still numbing. Images of the twins both together and separate flowed through his mind together with a tangled mess of emotions - affection and love and contentment and curiosity - and culminated in a picture of the one he knew somehow was the left-handed one standing before a mirror, their scrawled rune-alphabet spelling his name out in the glass: _Yuui_. The image flipped to show him the one on the right, the rune-word changing: _Fai_.

"I get it," he said, holding up his hands, and Fai made a small smug noise that Kurogane realized was not too different from the pleased hum Tomoyo made sometimes. He sighed, scrubbing both hands through his hair. "You know I'm just the pilot, right? The official ambassador is meeting with your people in the main coil."

The twins nodded, slowly like they weren't sure it was the right gesture to make, and Kurogane knew they'd acquired it from him already. They were smart, much brighter than he had thought. Yuui poked at him, sending an image of Kurogane standing next to himself.

"No," Kurogane said, shaking his head. "It's just me. My kind are born as one individual."

This time it was Fai who dropped a picture in his mind, one of Fei Wang Reed striding through the tight steel corridor of the space station in formal garb, Syaoran and Syaoron at his heels.

"Most of the time," Kurogane amended, and Yuui glanced at his twin. Fai was looking distinctly troubled.

_[Alone/sad?]_ Yuui thought, and Kurogane bared his teeth. _[Missing [other half/genetic duplicate/soul mate/companion/playmate/best friend/lover] twin?]_

"Of course not," he said, still reeling from the mental images that had flashed through his mind when Yuui tried to find the right term, and Yuui abruptly pressed against his side. Both twins had their hands linked again.

_[Grumpy human][lonely]_, Fai thought, and Kurogane growled at him. He ducked his head, giggling. _[Kurogane like a attakish!],_

He sent an image of an attakish with the thought; they were dog-like creatures with a pack instinct. They were often found guarding Gemini homes. Yuui hummed agreement, and added his own contribution: _[Kurogane better than [boring] human]_, and Kurogane realized with a jolt that they were using mental _words_. They were that fast?

_[Agreement/confirmation][yes]_, Fai told him smugly. _[Kuro-attakish easy language to [acquire/obtain] learn.]_

"My name is Kuro_gane_!" Kurogane told him, scowling, and it turned out that Gemini laughed just like humans did.


	3. Sphinx

_prompt by bottan: fai & yuui as sphinxes guarding a gate_

Kurogane gritted his teeth and curled his fingers around Souhi's hilt, and reminded himself that destruction lead to nothing but Tomoyo tutting. He closed his eyes and then counted to ten. And then backwards.

When he opened them the gate he needed to pass was still there, and so were the two odd creatures in front of it, lion's bodies and men's faces with long eagle's wings curved over their backs. Four piercing blue eyes stared down at him.

"When you said I had to answer a riddle," he said tightly, "I thought you meant a _proper_ riddle!"

"We did ask a proper riddle," said the creature on the left, blinking solemnly.

"We can't be held responsible if Mr Black isn't good enough to solve it~!" the other one chirruped.

"What? No! Listen, _how much wood could a woodchucker chuck if a wordchucker could chuck wood is not a riddle_!"

"He pronounced it right, Fai," said the left-sphinx.

"So he did," said the irritating one, and grinned like a shark. "Too bad it was just a practice run! Are you ready for the real question?"

Kurogane snarled and pushed off, sprinting for the gate right between them. He feinted quickly to the left, fooling the sphinx on that side, and then leaped neatly over the one named Fai, aiming for the top of the gate. It was a clean jump, and he probably would have made it if he hadn't smacked face-first into a kekkai.

He hit the ground rather hard, and Fai put a paw heavily over his stomach, claws extended just enough to sting. "So my question is this," said Fai casually. "What's the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

"Oh, I like that one," said the other sphinx, perking up, and Kurogane _groaned_.


	4. Vampires

_prompt by UnexpectedInspiration: vampires_

The sun was bright on Kurogane's face when he woke up, and he opened one bleary eye to find a sunbeam picking its way across the sheets and directly onto the pillow. He stirred slightly, wondering why he was so sore, before a touch to his bare back reminded him.

Yuui was curled against his chest, his fine blond hair scattered across the pillow; he looked almost human in the light. Fai was pressed against his back, walking his fingers lightly up and down over the knobs of Kurogane's spine.

"Good morning, Kuro-chii," he said lightly.

Kurogane just grunted in response. He ached deep inside where they'd taken him, and his skin was gross with sweat and other things he didn't want to think about, but he shifted to his back, the better to see Fai's expression. Yuui squirmed when he did; Fai just stared down at him, golden eyes vertical-slitted. "I thought your kind couldn't stand sunlight," he commented.

"Of course we can. Silver, too. Books lie," Fai said casually, grinning. His teeth were sharp and slightly curved. He put a hand on Kurogane's belly, lightly dragging his fingers through the wiry dark hairs leading down to Kurogane's lower regions, and the ninja narrowed his eyes. He didn't think he was in thrall to either of these creatures, but how could he know?

"Anything else you need to tell me about your kind?" he asked, instead.

"Kurogane, you're very loud," Yuui said sleepily, pushing himself up onto his elbows. His hair was mussed and wild; his eyes were blue to Fai's gold. The blood hunger hadn't set in yet, then. Fai made a small happy noise and Yuui turned and smiled at him, a beautiful smile that seemed to contain the sun, and then they leaned toward each other over Kurogane and kissed. Fai's palm flew up to cup Yuui's jaw; Yuui put his hand possessively over Kurogane's wrist. Their mouths met and parted, and Yuui gave a soft, shivery sigh born of deep contentment.

"Kuro-prey," Fai said quietly, as they broke apart. Yuui licked his lips; his tongue came back smeared with red where Fai's fangs must have nicked him, and when he turned to look at Kurogane his eyes too were golden and catlike. Fai dropped his voice several octaves and added, "We're _hungry_."

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><p><strong>notes:<strong> i am still totally taking requests for settings in this 'verse, so if you're reading and you have an idea, hit me with it! i'd love to see it. :)


	5. BRAIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS

_prompt from either UnexpectedInspiration or Bottan, i totally forgot 'cuz i'm a bad: zombie hunters._

The zombie clawed its way to the surface, eyes full of rot and worms, skin peeling from its skeletal cheeks. Its talon-like fingers, the ends rotted away, scrabbled at the earth, tainting it with its very touch. It opened its mouth, emitting a wave of fetid grave-breath upon the air, and then its head exploded.

"Wooo!" Fai said, cheerfully, lowering the shiny steel weapon. "Listen up, freaks, this is my boomstick!"

Yuui sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward from his perch upon the tombstone, silently begging for mercy from a heavenly source. Fai had been inseparable from his so-called 'boomstick' ever since he had found it, and despite himself he felt a little bit inadequate with his small handgun.

"It's cheating if you use a double-barreled shotgun on the walking dead, Fai," he said, not for the first time that night. Fai just threw his head back and laughed.

"Kuro-tan is going to be so jealous of my kill counter," he replied, taking aim again, and Yuui plugged his fingers in his ears when he pulled the trigger.

"I'm not putting ice on the recoil bruise," he yelled, but if Fai heard him his twin didn't reply.

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><p><em>still taking requests! just posting the drablets i'd already written first. coming up next: VIKINGS. or spaceship. whatever!<em>


	6. Vikings

_prompt by Bottan: vikings_

The town was burning, and the smoke stung Ulfr's eyes. The screams at least had stopped, and most of the truly flammable buildings had gone up like the wood they were made of, but some still smoldered. The town was half-hidden behind a pall of smoke, and the cloth Ulfr held over his face didn't help much; his throat felt irritated and ticklish. He was still buzzing with the frantic rush of battle, gross and sweaty, and he wanted to head to the sea to wash himself down but dared not without his brother. Trouble was, he couldn't find him.

He did find Magnus and Leif outside the building the soft southerners had worshiped their god in, or what was left of it. The roof had collapsed, and fire licked at the timbers; Leif had found a barrel of ale somewhere, and he and Magnus were leaning against it on one elbow each resting atop the remains of the barrel, drinking out of their helmets. They had opened the casket with a hand-axe, and ale foamed down the sides. They greeted him with a cheer.

"The young wolf returns triumphant," Magnus said, toasting him with the helmet. Ulfr grimaced at the nickname, but Leif grunted agreement.

"Have you seen my brother?" Ulfr asked, padding around them and cupping some of the spilling ale in the palm of his hand. He tried it and winced, his nose crinkling. He'd prefer mead any day.

"Went that way, ish," Leif told him, pointing down the dirt track that passed as the main road in this village. "Thorvild was looking for him too, you'd better find him quickly."

"Why? I was told he had made his first kill."

"He killed men, alright," Magnus said, scowling. "With that bow of his, like a southron weakling."

"Oh," Ulfr said. He didn't know what else to say. "I'd better go find him."

As he left Leif called after him, "At least one of you isn't a coward!" and Ulfr was glad they couldn't see his face. He touched the hilt of his sword at his side as he walked; she was a vicious thing, and she'd earned him quite the reputation, but he felt she was wasted here. The people of this town hadn't been prepared for an attack. What resistance he had encountered had been weak and confused.

He found his twin not at the end of the road but some distance from the town, on a rocky outcropping over the booming sea. Freyr's toes were submerged in the chalky gravel that lined these southern beaches, and he had taken off his chain mail; his battle axe lay half-buried in the sand, although he had folded his cloak neatly and placed his bow and quiver atop it. He was sitting hunched over, his arms wrapped around his legs and his chin resting on his knees, so absorbed in the slow breaking of the waves that when Ulfr leaped off the rocks and landed on the gravel next to him he jumped.

"Yuui," he said blankly, and then flushed as he realized his use of the childhood nickname, gained all those years ago when clumsy baby tongues tripped and stumbled over names, and looked away. "I'm sorry. Ulfr."

"Fai," Yuui replied, gently, using Freyr's own nickname in order to grant him permission to continue using Yuui's. He scuffed at the gravel with his boot heels, kicking himself an indentation so he could sit with Fai and look out over the sea. "What are you doing out here?"

"Thinking," said Fai. He was trembling slightly, but Yuui said nothing, resisting the urge to take his hands and comfort him.

"I hear Thorvild is looking for you."

Fai snorted bitterly. "Of course he is. I've disgraced the family again," he said, and Yuui saw how he tucked his hands under the opposite arm's forearms, hiding his fingers. He dipped his head and hummed, and then leaned forward to rest his chin atop his knees. In a soft voice he recited, "I can't see him. Not like this. 'Now death is the portion of doomed men, red with blood the buildings of gods. The sun turns black in the summer after. Winds whine. Well, would you know more?'"

Quoting the edda had always calmed Fai when he was upset. He should have been a skald, like he wanted. Yuui gave in to his urges then, touching his twin's shoulders lightly with his fingers. "I heard you made your first kills," Yuui ventured, and Fai's features tightened.

"Yes. I guess I'm almost a real raider, now. Now that I've killed some women and children and boys." His laugh was brittle and false. "I'll always be a coward to them."

"Not to me," Yuui protested, stung, and Fai sighed and tilted his head to look at him. His eyes were lonely, and without thinking Yuui cupped his twin's face, pulling him inexorably to his shoulder. Fai resisted for only a second before giving in and curling close, and Yuui gently ran his fingers through his twin's hair, smoother than steel.

"I hate this," Fai said in a small voice. "I hate being the embarrassment because I don't like killing."

"I know," Yuui said, pressing a soft kiss to his temple. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Fai said, crookedly. "It wasn't you who mutilated me." He held out his hands then, and Yuui closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at the damage their uncle had done to Fai's fingers, when Fai had asked leave to follow Snorri, the roaming skald, as an apprentice. "Warriors by blood, he said," Fai murmured, and Yuui shook his head, his cheek sliding over Fai's soft hair.

"Not forever. Remember, Constantinople," he said, and Fai twisted in his grip to look at him, expression incredulous and hopeful.

"You remember that conversation?" he asked, sounding faintly disbelieving, and Yuui swatted his head lightly in mock offense. It had happened ten years ago, the day Fai fought off the bear during their hunting trip armed only with a torch and a belt knife. It was not a day Yuui would forget anytime soon; the rain and the forest and the words they exchanged over the hunting fire: _Gunnar said his longboat crew went to a city really far south, where the streets were paved with gold and there were ships from all over the world!_

_Maybe one day we can go there?_

It was the first time he'd seen hope in his twin's face, in _their_ face. The Muslim men of the far south were skilled warriors, but possessed a keen intellect for learning. Gunnar had talked at length about the languages and songs he had heard there, the artwork he had seen, and Fai had followed him around, listening to everything he said with wide, hungry eyes. It made sense; Fai had always been interested in stories, which was why he had wanted so badly to be a skald, reciting poetry in the courts of Kings. He knew most of the Edda by heart already, just from listening to the trained skalds performing in the inn back home. Even Snorri had said he would have taken him as an apprentice in a heartbeat if Thorvild didn't object so very much.

"We can steal the haul from this trip," Yuui said, savagely. "It won't be too hard to buy passage south with it. You have a skald's ear for languages."

"Would you do that?" Fai asked, his eyes wide and breath hot on Yuui's face. Their noses were almost touching, he was so close, and Yuui didn't even have to think. His people were his people, but Fai was _Fai_, and he would not watch his twin waste away here, in a climate poisonous to him.

"For you, yes," he breathed, and then Fai was kissing him like he had so often in secret places back home, across the shining sea. His mouth was hot and he kissed with desperation and affection, and Yuui curled his fingers around his twin's jaw and kissed back. He was their uncle's golden child, the warrior, but Fai had always been his better half.

And anyway, he'd always felt more like a Yuui than an Ulfr.

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><p><strong>notes:<strong> i only just realised today that i'd left anonymous reviewing disabled, oops! i've enabled it now so if you don't have an account and you want to suggest an au prompt, go nuts. ^^

Ulfr means 'wolf,' freyr means 'master,' and the 'edda' refers to the poetic edda, a series of old norse poems that are basically awesome. Fai's recital is from the WH Auden translation of the voluspa, the first poem of the edda, and can be found in full here: http:/ members dot iquest dot net slash ~chaviland slash Voluspa dot htm.


	7. Mechanics

_prompt by Uakari120: kurogane's twincesty motorcycle mechanics._

"Oi!" Kurogane hollers, kicking roughly at the metal garage door. "Are you two morons even in there? My bike's busted and the race is tomorrow!"

Abruptly the door is shoved upward and Kurogane blushes as he sees Fai, his boiler suit pushed down to bunch around his waist. He's wearing nothing on his top half but heavy leather working gloves and a bandana dyed in Kurogane's team colours to keep hair out of the way, and his blue eyes are bright and alert.

"Figures Kuro-san would break it at the worst possible time," he says with a sigh, and strolls past Kurogane with no shame to set his hands on the handlebars, nudging the kickstand out of the way with a steelcapped boot and beginning to roll the motorbike indoors. "We'll have to overnight it. You're going to pay double!"

"Where's your twin?" Kurogane asks, still blushing, still trying to look anywhere but at Fai's naked chest.

"Here," Yuui calls reluctantly from further inside the garage. Kurogane ducks his head under the door and pads in, then pauses. Yuui is straddling the heavy leather seat of the twins' spares motorbike. One wrist is handcuffed to the middle of the handlebars, trapped between the brake cables, and he's flushing and looks about as mortified as Kurogane is. There are fresh hickeys across his collar bones. "Um, can you pass me my underwear?"

He points at the ceiling fan, and Fai hums smugly.

"... I hate both of you," Kurogane groans.


	8. Space

_prompt by mikkeneko: SPACE_

It is a change in the lighting that awakes him, entangled as he is in Kurogane's bed. The captain himself just grunts and turns his head, pressing his face further against the pillow, and Fai wriggles free of his grasping limbs with ease. The shipboard computer terminal tells him it's the middle of the night in the last world they visited, hours ahead of the lighting changing to simulate an artificial dawn. There's only one reason for it, then, and he traces the pads of his fingers sleepily across the touchscreen, acknowledging the summons.

The metal ship's floor is icy under his bare feet, but he doesn't mind. Lights snap on in the corridor ahead of him as he makes his way to the bridge, tiny as it is. It's a small cargo ship, designed to be crewed by three or four individuals, the ship itself doing most of the work.

Kurogane left a blanket on the captain's chair, and Fai wraps it around himself as he slides into it. The great windows before him show the twinkling blackness of deep space; a pointless aesthetic, since navigation is done by computer, but an attractive one. The lights start up in the bridge, too, bathing Fai in a welcoming glow, and he takes the cable running out of the shipboard computer and plugs the sharp neural spike into the socket behind his ear, wincing at the sensation. It's like eating a mouthful of food and accidentally biting down on nothing but fork tines, and leaves a faint taste of metal in his mouth.

"Hey," he says gently. "What's up?"

_Do you think we'll ever go offworld again?_ Yuui asks wistfully, his voice Fai's own but with a faint trace of synthesis.

"We're offworld now," Fai says.

_I mean_ after_. When we have bodies again. Do you think we'll ever leave? I think I've had enough of space._

"Probably not, then. If you've had enough." Fai lays a hand on the computer screen, and 'feels' Yuui shiver in gratitude. This is the only contact they have had for the last sixty years; his cheap synthetic body has more sensors than Yuui's great artificial shape. "The facility that has our genetic material is on a tropical world, I think."

_Would you want to stay there?_ Yuui sounds interested, and Fai can't say that he knows. He requested that world when he signed himself and Yuui up to the company after the accident because he thought Yuui might like it. It had seemed a pretty good deal at the time; Yuui had been dying, and the company had been willing to clone him a new body in exchange for his electronic brain doing service as a trade ship. Fai had signed on as his aide, a role that involved assisting the sentient ships in whatever they may need, to keep him from being lonely. "Half ship's engineer, half ship's teddy bear," they said of his job on the terrestrials. He'd gotten a new body, too, an artificial one to weather spacewalks and time better.

"If Yuui wants to stay there, then I will," he says gently. Yuui's thoughts are flickering and lost, mental static making them hard to follow.

_I don't -_

- I don't want -

- to be

alone -

- I don't want you to be alone.

Fai presses his palm to the touchscreen and strokes, rhythmic motions that settle Yuui's fragmented mind. "Five years to go," he reminds his twin. Just five more years and the great shell that houses Yuui's computerized brain will be decommissioned; five more years and they will have paid off their debt to the company for the equipment and training. Five more years and they will have clones ready and waiting to receive their minds.

_share pictures with me_

He does, of course, opening his memory files and running through his recollections for today, finding the images taken through his retinal cameras. Yuui takes the data files gingerly, holding them like their distant ancestors used to hold photographs in the old days - carefully, by their edges, studying them intently for meaning. Here a stilled picture of his breakfast, there an image of Kurogane sitting cross-legged in the same chair he is curled now. Another of their current cargo, brilliant swatches of silk hanging from the cargo hold; Yuui gasps when he sees it.

A whole series of images of Kurogane in bed, the look on his face, the flush of his skin, the line of his throat. Kurogane is serving too, paying off his artificial arm. _Thank you,_ Yuui thinks, and Fai smiles into the blank air of the bridge, surrounded by the humming wheeze of the air-pumping units, the ship's engine, the computer's electricity. Yuui is tangled in his thoughts like he had been tangled in Kurogane's arms. It's just fine.

"I have heard," he says carefully, "Good things about the planet Suwa."

Heard them from Kurogane, the captain talkative when drowsy. Kurogane has never said anything about Fai's... close... relationship with his spaceship, but he's the first captain they've had who remembers to refer to Yuui by his name or gender, not as 'the ship'.

He's good for Fai too, his presence reminding Fai of who he is, his own personality emerging after so long spent keeping it hidden for Yuui's sake. Teasing Kurogane brings Fai back to himself.

_Me too,_ Yuui thinks, and his voice is a light echo of Fai's own. _Perhaps we should call the lab and have our samples freighted._

Fai smiles, tilting his face up. The lights of the bridge are cold on his face, but he has Yuui, and freedom is within their grasp. "That sounds good," he says.

Five more years.


	9. Knights

_prompt by bottan: medieval knights._

Fai is out by the practice sally by the time Yuui escapes the throne room, and were it not for the spectators thronging the area he might pull his twin into a deep kiss. Instead he lets his hand rest on Fai's lobstered gauntlet for just a second as he takes the tourney blade from his brother, and smiles at the bits of straw everywhere. "Something annoying you?" he asks lightly.

"A little," Fai agrees, which is the closest he comes to lying to Yuui. "It's the newcomer, the man from the other end of the world."

"What about him?" Yuui asks, raising an eyebrow, and Fai growls at the straw dummy. Yuui swings the dulled tourney sword idly in his hand, waiting for his twin to think out what he wants to say. His armor is heavy and he would like to be rid of it, but finding a solution to Fai's problems comes first.

"He doesn't _notice_," Fai says, eventually, and Yuui nods, if only to himself. Kurogane is an oddity at this court - everything about the man is outlandish, from his features to his dress to his weapons and armor - and Fai has been flirting with him since he arrived in the only manner Fai can now, with the church looming hateful and disapproving over everything. Some of the other knights have noticed. Some of the courtiers, too; Lady Freya nudged him this morning as he prepared for today's guard duty and told him to tell Fai to be more careful. The castle's new priest has disliked Fai from the start.

"Perhaps," Yuui says, carefully, "You cannot afford to be subtle anymore."

"His language takes their honorifics very seriously. I've mangled his in every way I can think of, and he becomes all flustered and then _stops_," Fai complains, and Yuui sighs and brushes his brother's hair away from his cheek. Fai normally ties it into a queue, but today he seems to have been too vexed, and wisps escape across the bridge of his nose. "I touch him when I can, but the priest will not stop staring at me, and I have no wish to be flogged for defying their _god_."

Yuui agrees with him in this. The old gods they worship never required such pointless sacrifice and rejection of one's own base nature, the subduing of all that their priests deem inappropriate. Still, the King is religious - outwardly, at least, even if both Yuui and Fai knows he can't quite manage fidelity - and so as his loyal knight he must be good and he must be pious. He kisses Fai gently on the cheek. It's a chaste kiss, all he can do outside of the room on the top floor of the inn where he and Fai can be together as they like. He whispers, close and intimate in his twin's ear, "He is in his chambers. Go there, now, and show him with your body what you want. I will keep the priest distracted for you."

"You would do that?" Fai asks, his eyes flashing, and Yuui smiles. Their god does not hold them to chastity and monogamy the way this new one does, but Yuui has never wanted anyone other than Fai, and he knows he is always the one Fai will return to. It does not bother him when Fai dallies with strangers.

He touches Fai's gauntlet again. "Be happy," he says, and Fai clasps his hand between metal fingers, his grin blinding and beautiful.

That's all Yuui wants, really.


	10. Prehistoria

_prompt by Bottan: pre-historic tribe leaders_

It was snowing when Fai called the tribe to the bonfire at the heart of the village, and he regretted it even though he had no choice. He was their chief, and he towered over them in his white fox furs and amber jewelry, feathers braided into his hair and his flint knives at his waist. Yuui kneeled beside him in a matching cloak, although his jewelry was of cobalt, as was fitting for the shaman.

"Sit," he said, and the tribe settled itself in a loose circle around the fire, all eyes and ears on him, and he removed his cloak and stood before them in his hunting leathers, his eyes roaming over their faces. Fewer than he had hoped, much fewer. The winter had punished them harder than the one before it, which itself had been harder than any the tribe could remember. Yuui said it would get worse.

"We have lived in this valley for a long time," Fai said, choosing his words with care. He kept his tone light and a pretend smile on his face, and his people responded to it with relaxed postures, open faces. "But the day is approaching when we must move on."

He paused for the hubbub to die down, although there hadn't been much of one to start with. His people were frightened. Too few babies had survived the winter, although he suspected more would appear later on, with all the blanket sharing 'for warmth' the people had gotten up to.

"Where shall we go?" was their main question, and for this he held out a hand. His twin took it, his fingers graceful and slender and exactly like Fai's own, and he came to his feet in a fluid motion that set the tribe to murmuring. For the chief to defer to the shaman for an answer boded poorly.

Fai stepped back, leaving Yuui standing before their people, and Yuui shed his furs and stood naked before the bonfire. His pale skin seemed to glow in the darkness; he wore nothing, not even a simple clout, except the strip of cured reindeer hide holding back his fall of blond hair and the copper bracelets around his ankles and wrists, assembled of discs designed to click and chime when he danced. His skin remained smooth and unpebbeled despite the cold, and despite himself Fai felt a flush of _want_ coursing through his body.

"The spirits will tell us," said Yuui calmly as his apprentices took up their small drums and wands. Fai knelt and bowed his head toward the ground; Yuui bent over him and pulled one of his own knives from his waist as one of his students handed him a clay bowl, and Fai didn't flinch when his twin slashed it across his palm and bled him.

His apprentices started drumming, and the tribesmen held out their hands, knowing their part in this. Yuui didn't bleed them all, only the healthy, the ones who would not suffer too much, and the cuts were shallow. When he was finished he knelt before the fire and cut his own palm, mixing his own blood with that of his people, and added herbs from a sachet his apprentice handed him. He mixed them together with his fingers and then painted the blood over his face; a line across the bridge of his nose, his forehead, finger-trails of red curling down his cheeks and under his jaw.

Fai watched him through narrowed eyes as he then held the bowl out toward the fire, cupped gently between both hands turned coppery with the tribe's blood. There was great power in blood, he knew that much. He loved and trusted Yuui, and knew beyond doubt that it was mutual, but there were so many things about his twin's shamanism that he found a mystery.

"Bless this blood," he said, and the tribe echoed the words after him. "Allow me to be the conduit for your message. Allow me to be the vessel of my people."

A purple flame ignited within the bowl, to a torrent of fresh whispers from the gathered tribe, and Yuui placed the bowl on the ground between his knees, leaning forward and holding his long hair out of his red-streaked face to inhale the tinted smoke. He moved in a strange half-dance as he did so, sinuous and flowing, his copper bracelets singing in the wind audible over the sound of the fire; his eyelashes fluttered, and then drifted closed as he stopped moving.

For a long time he stood still, face turned up toward the towering heat of the flames, and when they opened again they were amber and cold. The tribe gasped and began muttering, but Fai merely nodded. Yuui stood up, naked and confident, and Fai rose too to meet him. Yuui cupped his face in his hands and his fingers were as ice.

"South," said Yuui, in a voice that grated and rumbled. "Bring your people south. The journey will take many, many days and nights, but there is a cold coming that you cannot escape."

"How will I know when I have gone far enough?" Fai asked, and the spirit possessing Yuui leaned forward and kissed him. His mouth was as wintry as his fingers, his tongue like snow. Fai did not kiss back, and the creature withdrew.

"When you find a warrior with eyes of scarlet," he said. "When the mountains fall behind you. When the animals change and the snows stop falling. When you admit to yourself what you wish, Fai, son of Fai and brother of Yuui, and only then."

This close he smelled like Yuui, too, all sleep and iron, although he lacked the heat that sometimes awoke Fai in the night. They were too old to share sleeping furs now, but Fai never seemed to move Yuui out and into his own tent.

"It won't change as much as you think," the spirit whispered in his ear, and then it was gone, leaving Yuui in its place, warm and dazed. Fai caught him before he could fall, abruptly aware of Yuui's soft skin under his palms, the pink buds of his nipples, the shining fall of the pale hair same as his own.

"We start moving in the morning," he said, and his tribe murmured their agreement, scattering to begin the task of packing. Yuui's apprentices moved toward him and Fai instinctively moved a step back before shaking his head, declining their offer. Yuui's breath was heavy on his throat, and he looked so peaceful Fai wanted... to touch, just to touch...

Instead, he looked away.


	11. Jungle

_prompt by bottan: wild men in the jungle_

"Oh, look," says the girl, pointing. "That flower is very rare, how wonderful to see it here! Syaoran-kun, take pictures, please!"

"Of course," says the boy by her side, but although he raises the camera to the flower his eyes are on her. Later they will find a photograph of his thumb, and Sakura will laugh and forgive him and he will blush and apologize.

"It's just a flower," growls the third member of their troupe. "Jungle's full of them."

"Not this one, Kurogane-san! Oh, see the way the petals curl?" She moves closer to the flower in question, pointing out parts of its biology with the pen kept always in her breast pocket, and Syaoran follows her. Kurogane rolls his eyes and moves away from them, checking their perimeter, one hand on his sword at his left side and the machete in its sheath at his right.

The jungle is crowded with noise, the calling of animals, the cries of insects, the gurgle of water; it is full of living things, and that's great and all, but he heard a roar last night and he's pretty sure big cats are a bit too alive for his taste. Syaoran said he shouldn't worry; the creepy-crawlies are more dangerous by far than the mammals in this part of the world. He's not sure how this is meant to be reassuring.

He hacks at the underbrush until he finds a stream and stands at its edge, eyeing it. There are fish in it, but judging from their teeth he's not sure he wants to mess with them, not even enough to fill his water canteen. He goes to his haunches and peers into the water, his shadow causing the fish to scatter. He inches the machete out from its sheath, wonders if he can get the fanged fish with it.

A reflection on the water surface draws his attention, and he looks up sharply to see a man standing on the other side of the stream, a strange man wearing a loincloth and clutching some kind of primitive spear. His skin is shockingly pale, his eyes an icy blue, and he's staring at Kurogane in open curiosity. There are streaks of dark blue paint across the bridge of his nose, and a left-handed print over his heart.

"Hnn," Kurogane says, narrowing his eyes, and doesn't move. Sakura would love to see him, he's sure, but he's equally certain if he moves or calls loudly the man will vanish.

The stranger hefts his spear and points across the brook with the butt at Kurogane's machete, and says something in a lilting tongue Kurogane doesn't know. Kurogane shrugs, and the man sighs and nods, pulling the spear back toward him and throwing it across his shoulders, curling his arms around it. He turns his head to one side and says something else in his strange language, and another blond comes out of the undergrowth behind him, clutching a similar spear.

The hand print across this one's heart is of a right hand, but otherwise they are identical; he stops beside his twin and tilts his head at Kurogane, and then steps closer to the stream, his brother studying Kurogane with cool intent eyes. The new twin takes his spear and slides his foot to the water's edge, movements still and graceful; there is a complicated blurred moment, and he dances back with two fish impaled on the end of the weapon, flapping weakly.

"Nice," Kurogane says.

"Thanks," says the first twin, cheerfully, and they've melted into the undergrowth by the time Kurogane's snarl of rage brings Syaoran and Sakura to the source of their meeting.

* * *

><p>still taking prompts (and working on them)! we're reaching the last few of the ones i originally posted to livejournal (about 3-5 to go) so keep the prompts rolling, i love them muchly. 3<p>

also, massive amounts of love for konnichipuu, who drew AMAZING fanart of fai, yuui and body paint here (just remove the spaces): http:/ / konnichipuu . livejournal . com / 6598 . html. ISN'T SHE AWESOME?


	12. Hollywood

_prompt by mikkeneko: film star & stunt double_

"You don't have to do this," Yuui says, unhappily.

"No, I don't," Fai replies cheerfully, nodding at the stunt crew. He looks good in bike leathers, but Yuui feels cold all over, despite the thick coat and the styrofoam coffee cup warming his hands.

"You should at least wear a crash helmet. I can bully the director into it, he can't get me for breach of contract when it's this dangerous -"

"Listen, you remember Goldeneye? The scene where he jumps off the dam? This stunt will make this movie _stick out_." Fai is wearing a black t-shirt under the blue riding leathers, his jacket not yet zipped up, and Yuui touches his free hand to the logo on it, feeling the heat of Fai's chest through the thin fabric. "Yuui. I'll be fine."

"You're about to ride a bike over a _burning plane_ for some brainless action movie I'm only taking for some quick money," Yuui snaps. "I don't, I - Fai, if you get hurt -"

"Hey. Come here." His twin captures his hand, peeling it off his chest and threading their fingers together. Fai's eyes are gentle and full of understanding, and Yuui exhales shakily and steps into his brother's space, throwing his other arm around Fai's shoulders and feeling the coffee sloosh in the cup. He tucks his face into Fai's throat. "I'll be okay. You know that."

"Every time you do a stunt I get like this. You shouldn't have tried to follow me into this business," Yuui mumbles. "You had a place at Harvard, for the love of -"

"Do I look like a business person?" Fai's arms are warm around him, strength in his thin frame. He always was the more athletic one of the two of them, years of martial arts training while Yuui preferred the drama club. "It's was always more the family's dream than mine. I don't want you doing your own stunts because you suck at it, even more than I suck at acting in front of a camera. I like my job. I get to ride a bike over a burning plane! Last film I got to face off against _Jackie Chan_."

"He kicked your ass," Yuui says, but he can feel a small smile curving his face.

"Well, he's Jackie Chan," says Fai, and they both laugh then. Yuui dips and touched his forehead against his twin's collarbone.

He wants to kiss Fai, but the set is crawling with people and so he settles for pulling Fai closer and curving his free hand around the back of his twin's neck, his thumb touched to the knob of Fai's spine, before murmuring, "If you don't do anything stupid - stupider, I mean - I'll cancel my date with that actress. The one my agent picked out to be my beard uptown tonight. We can... we can watch movies on the sofa at home. Or... whatever."

Fai tenses; Yuui doesn't need to see him to know his eyes are lit up. Fai hates Yuui's false dates even more than Yuui does, which is saying something. "Promise?"

"Promise," Yuui says, and Fai bumps his jaw over Yuui's forehead, a light nuzzle.

"Hey!" the director calls suddenly, and Yuui lets his twin go. "There you are! Save the sexual tension for the leading lady, Fluorite. C'mon, we're doing the first meeting scene on the other set, let your stunt double do his job."

"I'm totally going to make you watch Bond movies again tonight," Fai says, with a grin, and Yuui smiles back. He loves Fai more than he can express, so much so he'll even put up with Bond movies for him, and he's sure that the stunt crew will do their part to make it as safe as possible. The stunt coordinator is known for that, at least. He hands Fai his coffee cup and then zips up the leather jacket for him before taking it back.

"Yeah," says Yuui. He takes Fai's hand, gives it a final squeeze, lets it go. "Okay. He'll be fine."


	13. Curse

From the moment the witch had thrown them together, the twins had been driving Kurogane crazy.

Syaoran and Sakura were good kids, and in their own way the twins were good people too, but they were lying about something and worse, were _really bad_ at it. Fai was the easiest to read, but Yuui tried too hard to hide whatever the secret was behind his smiles and jokes and those fucking annoying nicknames. It wasn't even the existence of the secret that bothered Kurogane - although he was an honest man himself, he understood that sometimes there were things one might wish to keep hidden - it was how they formed a slight rift in the group, an invisible barrier between "us" and "them".

It wasn't just their body language, either. They went about fully clothed at all times, gloves and long sleeves and high collars and hoods. Yuui was friendly enough, at least on the surface; he hugged Sakura and touched Syaoran lightly when he thought the boy needed contact, and very occasionally he would lay a gloved hand against Kurogane's shoulder, or lean against him in the rain, but he never bared his skin. The only people they touched was each other, pulling off those long black gloves and laying pale palms on cheeks or linking fingers and, Kurogane suspected, doing a little more when they had their own room, judging from the soft gasps he had heard a night or two after the kids had gone to bed. He only had his suspicions, though, and both of them were masters of pretending.

In Outo this seemed to change; Yuui had injured his ankle and in the bar Kurogane had looked at it to check for damage. "Kuro-pyon, don't!" Yuui said sharply as Kurogane pulled up the cuff of his pants, but Kurogane had ignored him, gently circling the blond's calf with one hand to assess the bruise. As soon as his fingers slid over Yuui's bare skin the wizard made a breathy, shaky noise, like someone had slugged him in the gut.

"What?" Kurogane growled.

"... Nothing," Yuui said, and his eyes slid to one side, and he seemed unusually subdued for the rest of the trip, rubbing his gloved fingers lightly along his cheekbones as they sat and listened to the singer perform. When Kurogane dragged him home Fai came running to greet them along with Souma and Kurogane dumped Yuui rather mercilessly upon his twin in surprise, and he was so busy demanding an explanation for Souma's presence that he almost missed Yuui's excited whispering to his twin behind him.

That evening Yuui lounged on the sofa and Fai bought him an ice pack for his ankle, barehanded. "Thank you," he said, smiling at his twin. "Aren't your hands going to freeze?"

"Yes, they will," Fai said, smiling, and kissed him on the forehead before wandering back into the kitchen. Sakura was stirring cake mixture rather halfheartedly in the bowl, and Kurogane watched as Fai put his naked hands over hers and showed her how to do it properly. Yuui was the one who lied with smiles; Fai's gentle one was peculiar and probably real.

"Your hands are cold, Fai-san," Sakura said, in surprise.

"Are they? I'm sorry, princess, I was handling ice," said Fai, in a mild tone of voice. The corner of his mouth was crooked though, and the light in his eyes gave away how pleased he was.

"That's the first time you've touched anyone with your bare hands," Kurogane remarked, as blandly as he could, and Fai just shrugged. Yuui laughed out loud from the couch.

"Kuro-peep has been waaaaatchiiiiing uuuuus~!" he chirruped, and Kurogane snarled at him to shut up, and Mokana joined in, and the conversation died out. But Kurogane noticed for the rest of their stay in Outo that both Fai and Yuui kept their gloves off, and wondered.

He got his explanation in the next world, after the Cat's Eye and the Oni and everything else about Outo had been proven a lie. Fai evidently forgot about his gloves, forgot he was no longer in a video game, for he was the one who notified them. He brushed his palm absently over Kurogane's bare hand and promptly turned into a small fox.

"What," Kurogane said, staring.

"Oh dear," Yuui said with a sigh. "And we were doing so well. He'll be back to normal by tonight, don't worry."

He bent down and dug around in his brother's empty clothing, pulling the fox out by the scruff of its neck. Its fur was an even white, shaggy around the ears, and its eyes were a familiar shade of blue. He cradled it in his arms, its head resting against his shoulder like a child.

"How," Kurogane said.

"A curse," Yuui said, quietly. "It happens whenever we touch strangers. We're used to it by now."

"Why?" Kurogane managed, and Yuui smiled his secretive smile, and Kurogane knew he wasn't going to get anything more out of him on the reason for the curse.

"Don't worry, Kuro-sama," said Yuui. "We're used to it."

* * *

><p><em>prompt from mikkeneko: Yuui &amp; Fai under a curse where they transform into animals when hugged or touched by someone outside of their family group.<em>


	14. Curse part two

_continuation from the previous ficlet, since i couldn't leave this fic at 13 chapters. curse you, superstition!_

Prince Touya had ordered rooms for each of them after the battle, and Kurogane was attempting to make use of his when the twins had slipped in. The royal physician had tried to give him strong painkillers after the battle, but Kurogane had refused them; the pain of his artificial arm going missing was nothing compared to losing it for the first time, and he thought he could sleep well enough without the drugs thanks to the blood loss. He was dozing on his back with his eyes closed, and the twins made no noise but he could sense their auras. They came all the way up to his bed and hovered there, hands linked in a manner he had learned in Celes was typical for them.

"What do you two want?" he asked eventually.

"Yuui was worried about you," Fai said.

"So was Fai," Yuui added. "Kuro-sama keeps losing blood." The mattress dipped as he sat down, and Kurogane could feel the heat of his body although Yuui never touched.

"We thought you might appreciate company," Fai said, and Yuui hummed agreement. Kurogane opened one eye a slit, then the other. Yuui's hand was outstretched, hovering over the stump of his shoulder; his eyes were narrowed, and Kurogane mused that at least the eye business made it easy to tell them apart now.

"Watch out for the curse," he warned them, and Yuui's mouth moved in a small smile.

"Sometimes it's worth the consequences," he said, and then leaned forward and kissed Kurogane, the lightest brush of lips before his form blurred and changed and in his place on Kurogane's chest was a white cat. It flexed its claws against his skin and purred loudly, and Fai laughed, scooping his twin up by the middle and putting him in the curve of Kurogane's good side, tucked between his arm and his body.

"We need to find out how to fix that curse," Kurogane groaned. Fully-clothed grinding was getting boring, and he really wanted one of those deep tongue-filled kisses the twins shared with each other.

"Agreed," Fai said. He caught Kurogane's wrist by his sleeve and used it to tug his hand up, pressing a kiss against Kurogane's palm, and Yuui's purr increased when his brother changed. They butted noses briefly - Yuui licking a few times at Fai's muzzle - and then Fai pressed himself against Kurogane's other side.

"Give me fleas and I'm throwing both of you out the window," Kurogane said, but sleepily. Their fur was soft and they were very warm.

When Syaoran poked his head in a few hours later all three of them were asleep, man, fox and cat.


	15. CSI Ikebana

_prompt by tsubasa fan/youkohiei_fan: florists, assistants_

_prompt as utterly misinterpreted by mikkeneko: FLORIST ASSASSINS._

_yeah, i don't know either._

* * *

><p>The girls were there <em>again<em>, Kurogane observed glumly. They came every day, fresh from school, pretending to look at the flowers in the window while surreptitiously rolling their skirts up and running fingers through their hair. Kurogane glowered at them, scowling, but it they just giggled and nudged each other, no doubt summoning the courage to come in and ask for a single flower that meant something scandalous in code.

"Kuro-grumpy is going to wither the display arrangements to dust if he keeps glaring," Fai said behind him, cheerfully. Kurogane turned, narrowing his eyes, but he couldn't see anything of the blond behind the huge armful of deep pink roses he carried, wrapped in plastic. Yuui emerged after him looking haggard, lugging a pail of peonies in a complimenting shade, with a roll of ribbon in his free hand.

"You should ban those kids from this place," he growled.

"Why? They buy flowers," Yuui pointed out reasonably, placing the pail on the counter top as Fai carefully spread out the roses. He set the ribbon down and came to the counter, leaning against it backward with his elbows resting on the polished wood, and Fai ducked down to retrieve the wedding guide. Kurogane made a small noise of displeasure, but before he could say anything the bell over the door jingled and the girls came in.

"Hello," one said shyly. Fai smiled and waved at her; he was wearing a blue t-shirt today that made his eyes look even more striking.

"Oh, look at these roses," another one added, pointing at the selection Fai and Yuui had retrieved. "Are they for a customer?"

"Yes. They're for a wedding bouquet," Yuui said, tucking some of his hair behind his ear.

"As in, someone who bought something," Kurogane said, in a low voice, and the girls immediately converged into a huddled mass in the middle of the shop floor. Yuui grinned at him and Fai _hmph_ed, but they returned to the task of crafting the bouquet in the back of the store, leaving Kurogane with the cash register.

"We'd like to buy a bouquet please," said one girl, after a fierce whispered discussion. She hesitantly put some rather crumpled change on the counter. "We were hoping you would pick out... the flowers that you like?"

Kurogane glared at the money, the many-folded notes and faded coins. "What color scheme d'you want," he said.

"Pink!"

"No, blue!"

"Red!"

Kurogane narrowly resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but only because Fai always seemed to _know_ and then pouted at him for ages about his poor customer service. As if the blond could talk. Kurogane had caught him sitting on the counter making out with Yuui while Syaoran, manning the cash register not three feet away, had been flipping through the pages of a magazine and studiously ignored them.

"It's so cool that you know flower arranging," said one of the girls earnestly, as he picked out as many different colors as he could from the buckets lining the walls. "Where did you learn?"

"Ninja school," he said, and they burst into giggles.

"Kuro-chan, stop teasing the customers," Fai called from the back room.

Kurogane scowled, digging under the counter for the knife he kept there. It was sharp and long-handled and could sever the carotid artery in an emergency. He cut the stems down and wrapped the flowers in a twist of scarlet plastic, tying a short ribbon around it, and put the ensuing bouquet rather heavily next to their money. "Fifteen hundred yen," he said woodenly.

The bell over the door rang again as the girls clustered around the counter, passing around the bouquet and cooing over its neat arrangements, and Kurogane looked up to see a man in a dark trench coat, wearing wrap-around sunglasses with his hands in his pockets. He was tall, looming over the schoolgirls by a head, although not nearly as tall as Kurogane himself.

"I want to arrange a delivery for four hundred ice roses," he said.

"The idiots are in the back," Kurogane said.

"No we're not," Yuui added, emerging from the back entrance, and Kurogane narrowed his eyes at him. Yuui's hair was mussed, and his hairband had almost been pulled out so that his hair was spilling out of his usually neat ponytail; his lips were rather more pink than they had been. Kurogane sighed inwardly; he should have known that the twins couldn't be left alone together for more than ten minutes. "Oh, did you make that, Kurogane?" He jerked his head at the bouquet in the hands of the schoolgirls.

Kurogane grunted an affirmative and Yuui smiled at him brightly. "I had to learn," he said reluctantly. He had argued that ikebana was no longer necessary, and Kendappa had, in turn, thumped him solidly upside the head and called him a brute with no appreciation of the fine arts and thus unworthy of the term ninja. His protests that he knew a hundred and one ways to kill a man fell on deaf ears.

She had been right, not that he was ever going to tell her that. "You done?" He asked the girls gruffly, and they inhaled the bouquet as they filed out.

"Niels Larsson," said the man. "Grand hotel, presidential suite. He flies back to Europe day after tomorrow."

"We'll make sure he gets his roses before then," Yuui said, smiling sweetly, and the man grunted assent. "That'll be five hundred grand. In Euros."

"Expensive."

"Ice roses are rare," Yuui chided him gently, still with that same light grin. The bead curtain separating the store from the back rattled and Fai poked his head through; Kurogane grinned savagely as the stranger nodded and handed over a ziploc bag with a cellphone in it. Yuui took it delicately and tucked it under the counter. "Pleasure doing business with you," he said.

Finally, Kurogane thought. He was getting sick of flowers.

"So is it true you made a bouquet?" Syaoran asked curiously that evening.

Kurogane grunted. "Are we talking double speak here? 'Cause I've killed a lot of guys."

"No," said Syaoran, dismissively. "I heard you made an actual _flower bouquet_. With ribbon."

Kurogane glared at him but Syaoran didn't look all that cowed, which was annoying. Not for the first time Kurogane wondered how he had ended up with these oddballs. Across from them Fai shifted his weight on the van's hard seat; he was reading a periodical on ideal spring arrangements, which seemed to involve a lot of forget-me-nots. He was dressed head to toe in black, like the rest of them; his sniper rifle was disassembled in a bag at his feet.

He hadn't said a word since they'd climbed in the van, probably sulking because Kurogane wouldn't let him sit next to him; the last time that had happened Fai hadn't been able to stop groping him, and he'd had to stay in the van to try and calm himself down while the twins carried out the mission alone. He had no wish to repeat that incident with Syaoran present.

"You seem in a good mood today, Syaoran-kun," Yuui called back from the driver's seat. "Did you talk to Sakura-chan?"

Syaoran flushed. "No," he said miserably. "I don't know what to say to her. She's my _cousin_, I can't kiss her, let alone do anything... else!"

"That's legal in this country," Fai pointed out, not looking up from his magazine.

"She's my _cousin_, Syaoran repeated carefully. "It's just... wrong."

"You do know who you're talking to here," Kurogane said doubtfully, and Fai's mouth curved up in a small smile.

"It's different when it's between two men," Syaoran said, firmly.

"The incidence rate for mutant babies isn't as high as people think," Yuui added helpfully, and Syaoran made a curious squeaking noise and turned an even brighter shade of pink.

The rest of the trip passed uneventfully; Kurogane attempted to change the subject to spare poor Syaoran even more questioning by the twins, and it mostly worked. Yuui parked the van in the hotel car park and jumped out, opening the door. Kurogane and Syaoran burst into motion, changing quickly into hotel uniform, and then grabbed the baskets of flowers that would get them unnoticed in through the service door. Fai climbed out, his bag over his shoulder, and gave his twin a quick bruising kiss before heading for the building across the street from the hotel, slapping a name badge over his chest as he went.

It went smoothly, as per usual. Syaoran headed for the security center, to feed the cameras in the hallway a false image; Kurogane and Yuui waited for his text message and then climbed into an elevator to change again into smart three-piece suits. They stood side by side as it rattled up toward the very top floor, Kurogane quietly checking for the location of his weapon. There were bodyguards posted outside, but they opened the door for the two of them when Yuui flashed a false security police badge.

There were more bodyguards inside the room, and one of them immediately came to pat down Kurogane and Yuui; when he found the wakazashi strapped underneath Kurogane's suit jacket he held it at arm's length, a puzzled expression on his face. "What is this for?" he said, in heavily accented Japanese.

"_He_ wouldn't let me bring my katana," said Kurogane, jerking his head at Yuui who merely smiled and shrugged.

"It's six feet of steel, Kurogane," he said, patiently. "I'm not wholly sure where you thought to hide it. I'm impressed you managed that one, to be honest."

"You bring a knife to a gun fight," said the bodyguard, smugly, squinting at them. He opened his mouth to say something else, which was when the bullet tore through the floor-to-ceiling bay window and blew him away. Kurogane caught his wakazashi as it fell and was moving before the body hit the floor, Yuui retrieving his gun from his waistband at the same time in one fluid arc, and before their mark could cry out all six of his bodyguards lay dead in pools of their own blood.

Had Kurogane been a cruel man he could have commented on the tactical advantage of bringing a knife to a gun fight with a sniper on your side. Instead he dealt with the two bodyguards outside, who had been alerted by the noise, and then wiped the blade clean on the curtains as Yuui shot their target in the head and gave a thumbs up sign through the window at Fai, across the street.

"Ugh, I got red on me," Yuui complained, tossing him two spray cans of the foul-smelling stuff they used to cover up their crime scenes, and they both set to work spraying down everything they could, including the bodies.

"You can call first shower when we get back, then," Kurogane grunted, wiping down the door handle. Both their cellphones buzzed simultaneously, and when he checked it he saw he had a message from an unlisted number; _payment delivered_. He finished up with the suite while Yuui called their bank in Europe to confirm they'd been paid, and then they left the way they had come in, Yuui meticulously cleaning the blood off his face with a napkin he put back in his pocket. Privately Kurogane thought he was being overly paranoid about crime scene investigations, but both the twins watched procedural cop dramas religiously and Kurogane didn't want to get himself into yet another marathon of that bastard with the sunglasses and the insensitive puns.

Syaoran was waiting for them outside, and Fai jogged across the parking lot when they reached the van. None of them said anything on the drive back; Yuui dropped Syaoran off at his apartment, and then turned the van toward home. Fai slid into the seat next to Kurogane as soon as Syaoran was out of the car, and Kurogane couldn't find it in himself to pretend like he didn't want him; he was still full of adrenaline from the fight, and when Fai leaned against him, talking about everything and nothing as usual - whether he thought forget-me-nots really were coming back in season; whether there was ever a good reason to put daffodils in a bouquet, how movies got sniper rifle bullet wounds all wrong - he turned his head and caught the blond in a kiss that actually shut the idiot up for once. When he let Fai go he actually looked a little stunned.

"I, uh. I can guess what Kuro-stud wants," Fai said, touching his thumb to his lip, where Kurogane _may_ have gotten a little carried away and sort of kind of bitten it.

"Can it wait?" Yuui called back, glancing at them in the rear view mirror. "I didn't buy that extra-large shower for no reason, you know. We'll be home in thirty."

"Mmm," said Kurogane, and grabbed Fai's chin again, tilting his face up those last two inches for another searing kiss that made _him_ feel kind of breathless. Fai's pupils were all distorted; looked like Kurogane wasn't the only one who appreciated company after a contract.

"Yuui," Fai said, staring at Kurogane with his lips all pink and swollen where Kurogane had bitten him, "Make it fifteen."

* * *

><p><em>this is a true conversation:<em>

**mikkeneko:** so i totally misread that prompt as 'florist assassins'  
><strong>mikkeneko:<strong> and immediately thought of weiss kreuz  
><strong>mikkeneko:<strong> which, for those of you with better taste in anime than i, is about bishounen assassins covered in flowers  
><strong>me:<strong> *quotes first few paragraphs of fic*  
><strong>mikkeneko:<strong> omg i didn't mean for you to actually WRITE IT!


	16. Fox

**prompt by mikkeneko: kitsune**

* * *

><p>He finds the twins sitting by the road during his patrol, and at first he has trouble believing what he sees. They are strange creatures, pale and blue-eyed, and they are pressed close together on the grassy verge. They brighten when they see him.<p>

"What are you doing here?" Kurogane demands, reining his horse to a stop. "I thought I told you two to wait in Kyoto."

"We got bored," Fai says lightly; he is the more open twin, leaning back on his hands with the folds of his kimono arranged artfully around him, soft blue fabric framing the _v_ of his collarbones and the line of his throat. Yuui is curled with his arms around his knees, watching his twin with an open, amused expression on his handsome face. "Kuro-chan's house is so empty and dull, and we knew you were coming home soon."

"Tch," Kurogane growls by way of response. He nudges his horse closer and grips the saddle pommel firmly as he swings his leg over and out, his boots hitting the ground roughly, and the twins stand up to meet him. "I'm still two days away from home. Did you bring horses?"

"No," Yuui says, and Fai grins at him toothfully. With a muttered curse Kurogane takes their bag and ties it to the saddle, then pulls the horse's reins over its head and knots them into a crude lead rope; he tosses this to Yuui.

"You could have waited," he says.

"But we _missed_ you~!" Fai replies, leaning toward him, and the way he bats his eyelashes leaves no doubts as to his true intent. Yuui goes faintly pink and busies himself stroking the horse's nose, and Kurogane rolls his eyes. "Plus we thought even brave and noble samurai like yourself could use some sex every now and then," Fai continues merrily, and Kurogane exchanges a long, sympathetic glance with Yuui.

"Idiot," he says, and Fai just laughs.

* * *

><p>He'd met the twins for the first time not six months gone; they had been lost in the forest, foreign and confused. He had taken them in more out of curiosity than anything else, wanting to know where they came from and why they were coloured the way they were; they hadn't spoken <em>nihongo<em> but they had picked it up quick enough, and somehow, although Kurogane had meant merely to escort them to a nearby settlement and out of the wilderness, he had ended up keeping them.

For a while it was sweet, at least. They were smart and attractive and showed good aptitude with weapons, and one thing had led to another (_friction in the night, hot hands and bare skin, shuddering peaking cries of pleasure_). He had wound up letting them stay with him for the full length of his patrol and then some; it was lonely and hard work, patrolling the lands this far from human civilisation, keeping down the monsters and vicious creatures that prowled the wild woods, and he appreciated the company. More fool him.

A few months after taking them in he'd interrupted them while bathing, and he had learned a few things. They had been beautiful: Yuui had been standing in the lake, water up to his thighs and his tipped back against Fai's shoulder. Fai had been blanketing him from behind, one arm wrapped around Yuui's upper chest and the other considerably lower. Yuui's eyes were half-lidded with lazy pleasure, and Fai had been pressing lazy kisses into the pale skin of his throat, a smirk working its way around the corner of his mouth, and Kurogane had looked at them and thought, _I should have known_. They were beautiful and alien and their true reflections shimmered in the water, ethereal things fleeting and fragile and shining.

"I haven't seen a sunshower recently," Kurogane said mildly, and they sprang apart as if pushed. Yuui sank under the lake surface as if to hide his nakedness, his eyes wide and cheeks flushed, but Fai just stood there, naked and exposed and fathomless, his expression shuttered and closed.

"Kuro-chii. We didn't hear you," he said, in an unusually subdued tone of voice.

"I'm curious. In this story, am I the samurai you trick?" Kurogane asked coldly. "Or the fool who falls for the handsome strangers?"

"We were going to _tell_ you," said Yuui, quietly, and flinched at the look Kurogane shot him; he was still mostly submerged in the lake, its waters lapping at his chin. Fai just folded his arms over his chest and glared at Kurogane, who glared back. There was a kind of defensiveness to Fai's gesture, something Kurogane did not typically associate with his kind.

"I should have realized, what with your fondness for _udon_." He rubbed a hand over his mouth and sighed. "No. I should have realized when I first saw you. Never trust strangers on the road."

"Just because we're kitsune does not mean we had ulterior motives," Fai said coolly. "We were lost and you were kind."

"You mean gullible," Kurogane sneered, and Fai sighed and waded out of the lake. Kurogane turned away from him, but it didn't stop the man with the fox reflection from curling against his side and sliding his arms around Kurogane's neck. He just stood there, tense as a board and refusing to acknowledge the touch, and then Fai stood up on the balls of his feet and kissed him, and the kitsune put his thoughts right into the kiss. Kurogane had known then that he was screwed.

"We didn't mean to deceive you," Yuui offered apologetically, approaching him from his other side as he turned his head without conscious intent to deepen the kiss with Fai. "We're good kitsune, I promise."

"No such thing," Kurogane said, sliding his hands onto Fai's naked hips, but goddamnit, they were smart and easy on the eyes and well, trickster spirit or not, Fai had once set fire to his own clothing trying to dry it out over the campfire and Kurogane was pretty sure he could outwit both of them, right? And when Yuui pressed against his side it seemed the easiest thing in the world to lift his arm a little to let them in, and damn.

He thought he understand the men who took kitsune brides a little more now.

* * *

><p>That had been months ago, and now what they have is something different; the twins want to know all about the monsters he has seen, the things he has vanquished, and they walk beside him through the woods, the horse obediently following on its tether as he talks and tries to pry an overly clingy Fai off him.<p>

It is good and the twins are surprisingly decent company, and truthfully Kurogane expected to encounter them on the road again. His rooms back in Shirasagi are spacious and wide, but kitsune are not indoor creatures, and their presence here is something he can understand. He will have to take them with him, next time.

"Kuro-sama is thinking thinky thoughts," Fai croons next to him, and Kurogane rolls his eyes.

"What are you thinking about?" Yuui asks from his other side, and he hesitates before answering. Before he can, however, a fat drop of cold rain lands on his cheek, unexpected; there are no clouds and the sky is as blue as the kitsune's eyes. Yuui makes a startled noise, but Fai just laughs.

"It's a sun-shower~!" he says, as more raindrops fall, a veritable shower of them, and holds out both hands, palm-up. "One of us is getting married somewhere."

"You know that's just superstition, Fai," Yuui scolds. The rain has slicked his hair to his face, and Kurogane snorts.

"Either way, we're getting soaked. Move," he says, and with matching grins his kitsune do just that.

They make camp for the day inside a cave, the sunshower pouring outside. It's odd, the bright sky and the shining sun and the sound of roaring rain; Kurogane rubs down the horse while the twins crowd at the entrance to the cave, watching the sky transfixed. "What?" he demands brusquely.

"Rainbow!" Fai calls back, grinning. "Come see, Kuro-wet horse smell!"

"_What_?" Kurogane growls, but he wanders over anyway and yes, they are not lying; a rainbow curves gently across the sky. Yuui leans against his side with a small noise and Fai is smiling and, well. Kurogane supposes their company is kind of appreciated.

That night they spread out their blankets and Kurogane falls asleep with a blond on each side, their blue eyes shining in the darkness.

* * *

><p><strong>an:** I haven't forgotten these drabblets, I promise! I just have a ton of other projects that are taking up my time, aside from IRL - my WIP Kuro/Fai/Yuui AU ('Flying upwards over the mountain'), my co-write Kuro/Fai/Yuui AU IN SPAAAAAAAAAAACE that I'm doing with Mikkeneko ('Not Quite Paradise' - it's under her bio on ffnet, go read!) and now, a fic for Livejourna's KuroxFai Remix Challenge that has to be finished by the end of October.

I haven't abandoned this series, I promise! I have a couple ideas for continuing the 'Curse' storyline, and a few more seperate drablets in me yet. Still, I hope you enjoyed kitsune. :D


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